Led by UCSF Office of Technology Management, this 90-minute workshop is designed for the QBI community and faculty members that are interested in learning more about Innovation Ventures. This workshop will cover topics including startup development, services, commercialization, and licensing.

AGENDA
1:00 PM: Introduction
1:10 PM: Office of Technology Management and Advancement (OTMA) Startup Development and Services
1:55 PM: Interactive Market Assessment Case Study with Johnny Yu, Vevo Therapeutics
2:25 PM: Q&A

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Todd Pazdera - Todd has over 15 years of business development and licensing experience and is currently the director of BD and Licensing in Innovation Ventures at UCSF. Todd leads both the EOD and Licensing teams which are engaged in identifying, prioritizing, developing and partnering UCSF innovations. Todd and his teams also lead efforts to cultivate and launch new startups based on UCSF discoveries. Todd received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in Cell and Structural biology from the University of Illinois.

Lorraine Johnson - Lorraine Johnson joined the UCSF Office of Technology Management and Advancement in January 2021 as a manager of Engagement and Opportunity Development. In her role, Lorraine focuses on evaluating inventions and commercial opportunities in the areas of devices, diagnostics, and digital health. Lorraine comes to UCSF from Industry and has spent more than 20 years commercializing medical devices and digital health platforms with Johnson & Johnson and several start-ups.

Darya Bubman - In her role on the Engagement and Opportunity Development (EOD) team of UCSF’s OTM, Darya evaluates novel UCSF inventions for market opportunity, identifies technologies that a start-up company could be built around, works on developing business opportunities for such promising new ventures and negotiates start-up licenses. Darya is also the lead for developing and maintaining the EOD Key Opinion Leader network of early-stage investors and industry as well as the EOD EiR Program. Darya is passionate about working with UCSF faculty and staff to nurture new venture opportunities that have the potential to improve health on a global scale and change the world for the better.

Hong Zhang - Hailey has extensive experience in life science R&D and business development. Currently serving as the Manager of Business Development and Licensing (BD&L) in Innovation Ventures at UCSF, she collaborates closely with inventors in the UCSF community to identify and cultivate partnerships in therapeutics, diagnostics, and digital health areas.

Before joining UCSF, Hailey worked in Merck KGaA's Business Development team and worked as a consultant at L.E.K. Consulting, specializing in evaluating life science assets for the private equity sector. She holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Johnny Yu - Johnny is the Chief Scientific Officer and a co-founder of Vevo Therapeutics, a platform therapeutics company leveraging massive single-cell data generation efforts to power drug discovery. At Vevo, Johnny has spearheaded groundbreaking initiatives, most recently the Tahoe-100M project, which produced the world's largest oncology scRNAseq drug perturbation atlas, significantly advancing personalized cancer treatments. Prior to founding Vevo, Johnny trained at UCSF, where he co-developed the innovative GENEVA platform, a scalable, high-throughput in vivo assay for drug screening. His extensive academic and industry experience bridges innovation at the intersection of emerging technologies and oncology therapeutics discovery. Johnny's leadership at Vevo reflects his deep commitment to translating cutting-edge science into meaningful advances for drug discovery and patients.